Whither Somaliland?

Before the colonizers left their former colonies, they divided the people creating artificial borders everywhere that weren't sustainable. 'Divide and Rule' policy has been the driving force behind such a strategy. Much of the troubles in our time owe their origin to that colonial surgery.
Even then they are not satisfied, and want further fragmentation to keep the former colonies weak and vulnerable. As such, they planned for the division of Iraq and Afghanistan along ethnic lines. While so far they have not succeeded in those countries for independent political entities like Kurdistan to emerge, but already the harm has been done, and it's a question of time when and not why such realities will take hold.
Somalia includes territories that were once occupied by two colonizers. Somaliland was a British protectorate until 1960, while Somalia was under Italian colonial rule. Both then formed a united Somali republic after independence. Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991 after that country descended into chaos and civil war following the collapse of the regime of dictator Siad Barre.


Now see the latest news about Somalia. It won't be too long that the country would be divided into two or more parts, and a Somaliland would emerge as an independent country. The African Unity is opposed to such a division. "Leaders of the African Union don't want to encourage an independence of Somaliland because many African countries have borders that were drawn by colonial powers and there are many different ethnic, political or social groups which might feel that they deserve their own country," says Tim Glawion, a research fellow with Germany's GIGA Institute of African Studies, told DW.